angst abounds

[subtle-dusk.livejournal.com]

Title: Life for Rent
Pairing: Monaboyd
Rating: R
Summary: When it got to the point where they could hardly be on the same planet without this palpable, awkward tension, Elijah decided he had to do something.
Notes: For booshgal33's White Flag Challenge. Details there. Not a songfic.
Disclaimer: I don't know them, this never happened. No disrespect is intended.



When it got to the point where they could hardly be on the same planet without this palpable, awkward tension, Elijah decided he had to do something. Dom and Billy were two of his best mates, and even more, they were part of his New Zealand family. He really, truly felt they belonged together; if you didn’t belong with the person who made you laugh the hardest of anyone you’ve ever met, and who knew exactly what you were thinking just by looking at you, and who you could communicate to without using any words at all…well, then fuck. Who did you belong with?

Elijah heard about a pub they, as a collective Fellowship, had never ventured to, and offered to take Dom there, his treat, after a particularly intense argument between Dom and Billy. Dom, Englishman and German that he was, took up his offer of free limitless alcohol readily.

Elijah had gleaned from various sources that the argument had something to do with the fact that Dom flirted with anyone who breathed in the same airspace as himself, including Elijah. Secretly, Elijah felt that this was just part of who Dom was, and if Billy couldn’t accept that, couldn’t comprehend that Dom loved him above all else…well, then maybe the two people who were most perfect for each other out of the thousands of people Elijah had ever met, actually weren’t.

So together, he and Dom journeyed to this as-yet unexplored pub. As the night progressed, there was Elijah, drunk out of his mind, and there was Dom, heartbroken and maybe a little bitter and definitely drinking himself into oblivion, and who recognized that Elijah was in fact a very, very beautiful boy.

So when Elijah excused himself and made his way to the toilet, practically falling all over himself in the process, the remaining coherent - though not by any means sane - part of Dom’s mind said simply, follow him.

So he did.

And he pressed his palm against Elijah’s chest as the smaller boy was stepping out of the toilet, forcing him back into the stall, up against the wall, and Dom held him there and stared at him and Elijah stared back.

And Elijah would never, ever forgive himself for what he did next; there was Dom, pressed fully against him with a thigh between his legs, exerting this exquisite pressure, and there was the alcohol (a lot of it), and there was this look of complete hopelessness and pleading in Dom’s eyes, and Elijah - at the time - was certain that no one could deny Dom under the circumstances.

So he kissed Dom.

And Dom kissed back.

And neither said to stop, so both just kept going.

Billy didn’t walk in on them. He didn’t even know where they were, and in reality at that moment he was speaking with Viggo over things he couldn’t articulate but somehow knew Viggo would understand anyway.

Billy called Dom’s mobile shortly after and left a voicemail that Dom would discover in the morning, in Elijah’s bed, to be a very lengthy, heartfelt apology. When his mobile did go off at the time - it was set on vibrate - Dom was shucking off his trousers with one hand and tormenting Elijah in the best possible way with the other.

Dom went home with Elijah that night, not because Elijah’s flat was closest, which it was, but because Elijah was like the cloves he smoked; he was sort of an exotic addiction with nearly instant gratification, and after Dom had fucked him up against the wall in the pub toilet, his inebriated mind told him he ought to do it properly as well, if only as a fucked up sort of thank you to Elijah.

So when Dom woke up, with an incredible headache and slight bout of nausea, and rolled over to find Elijah curled next to him, naked, he nearly flung himself out of the bed.

Elijah woke, and not as fortunate as Dom to have no memory whatsoever of the previous night, had to then relate in excruciating detail just what he remembered, his pure blue eyes fixed on three loose threads of his comforter, while he watched Dom in his peripheral vision thumping around the room as he searched for his clothes.

Dom was very still when Elijah lapsed into silence. He stood at the foot of the bed, looking at this creature who was definitely more boy than man as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

And touched his mobile, and retrieved it, and discovered he had a voicemail.

To Elijah, time suddenly slowed; everything slowed, as though moving through water. Dom brought the mobile to his ear and listened intently, nodding minutely several times, swallowing hard throughout. Dom turned slowly, and began walking out of the room, but by the time he reached Elijah’s front door he was jogging, and then sprinting down to Elijah’s car, the key of which he had a copy.

When he heard the door to his flat slam shut, time jolted back into reality and Elijah sprang from the bed, twisted in the sheet, and fell over, hitting his head against the nightstand and quite thoroughly knocking himself unconscious.

Dom pulled up in front of Billy’s flat and stumbled out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition and locking it in the process - his car wouldn’t allow him to lock the doors while the keys were in the ignition, but apparently Elijah’s had no such qualms. He tripped up the steps and buzzed to be let in, and when the door was unlocked, Dom burst through and up the stairs and only paused when he was in front of Billy’s door, which may not have been the best time to collect himself, since Billy was expecting him, now that he had been buzzed in.

Dom ran a hand through his hair and discovered that he was shaking violently, and when Billy opened the door and greeted him with a timid, sheepish smile, Dom fell into him, apologizing and begging for forgiveness all at once.

Upon waking, Elijah dressed sloppily and took a cab to Billy’s flat and sat on the curb across the street, watching the window that he knew led into Billy’s room with an eerie calm and a definite urge to vomit all at once.

When Dom emerged two hours and seven minutes later, Elijah did turn and vomit, because he knew without a doubt that it was over, and that it was entirely his fault.

Dom walked mechanically to Elijah’s car without actually noticing Elijah himself, and tried the handle. Somewhere it registered that he had locked the keys in the car, and he appeared to take this in stride, turning away from the car and proceeding to walk in the general direction of his flat.

Elijah, trying to stop shuddering so damn hard, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and watched Dom as he took two, three steps, fell to his knees, and sobbed.

No one on set the next day knew what happened, and no one ever would get the truth from Billy, Dom, or Elijah, because none of them ever spoke of it again. Everyone assumed there had been an argument, a huge falling-out of two of the best mates history had ever seen - though no one knew precisely how Elijah fit into the equation - and that now they were trying to move on with their lives, so no one asked questions.

Filming ended. Dom moved to the states, and in with Elijah, and in retrospect Elijah suspected that if there had ever been any hope of true reconciliation with Billy, this shot it to hell.

Outside of keeping up appearances, Dom and Billy didn’t speak. When they were together for interviews or premiers, they acted as though nothing was amiss, and the general public bought it, because they were both actors, it was what they fucking did. Over time they appeared together at events less and less, but the growing distance between them felt so natural that no one suspected it wasn’t.

If they did happen to speak, and only if they were alone, Dom would always tell Billy that he still loved him. Billy would just sort of stare at Dom as though he was a vaguely offending insect or something, nod contritely, and walk away.

When they went an entire year without appearing at the same event once, it really began to dawn on Dom that what he lost in Billy was not just his lover, but his absolute best mate as well. Dom never outright said anything, but it was obvious that some part of him was not willing to surrender to the reality of the situation, that some part of him was still desperate to hold onto this hope that things would some day return to normal. But there was no hope, and unlike the film they had worked on for what seemed like a lifetime and an instant all at once, nothing was going to change that.

It was near the same time as this realization that Billy finally told Dom in no uncertain terms to stop saying, “I love you,” because Billy didn’t want to hear it anymore.

Dom swallowed, and bit his tongue, and said okay.

They didn’t speak for a very long time after that, but Dom hadn’t given up. Elijah knew this, because Dom would cut out articles that mentioned Billy, or look up updates on Billy’s official website just to see how he was doing; after all, with them not speaking, there was no other way to know.

So Dom knew all about Ali, even if Billy rarely mentioned her to him.

And it killed Elijah, because he knew Billy wanted to forget about Dom, had almost completely replaced Dom in Ali, and that Dom would never - could never - stop loving Billy. He didn’t have it in him.

It was only when Viggo threatened to castrate them both if they didn’t come out for his huge Christmas celebration-slash-reunion that Billy and Dom saw each other again.

Dom came with Elijah and Billy came alone, and Dom let Billy make the first move. Billy walked over to them both, and there they three stood trying not to look at each other but finding nowhere else for their eyes to rest.

Elijah was getting fidgety, and Dom was actually debating whether or not to tell Viggo he could fucking castrate him if he could catch him, when Billy took a step forward, and embraced them both.

When he pulled back he was grinning so Dom grinned and Elijah grinned and that set the mood for the rest of the night: everything was okay.

Dom was a good actor - Dom was a fucking bloody fantastic actor when it came right down to it - and he fooled nearly everyone that night; for the first time, he even fooled Billy. Because Elijah knew that everything was not okay with Dom, and he suspected that if Billy didn’t see this, then Billy didn’t want to be bothered with the possibility that he was killing his best mate…the bloke that used to be both his lover and his best mate.

Billy embraced Dom as he said goodnight, and it was most definitely not as much of a male-to-male embrace as it was a lover’s embrace, and Elijah recognized this and resented Billy for it.

But nothing exploded, no one internally combusted, the world did not end. At least, the collective world didn’t end. Dom’s world was pretty fucking close to the apocalypse, and it certainly didn’t help matters when they stayed in that embrace for longer than particularly appropriate, even when you’re best mates, which Dom still didn’t think they were.

Elijah knew Dom could have overcome the depression that settled on him after that night, if Billy hadn’t asked Ali to marry him two days later.

Technically, five hours ago.

Elijah knows it’s been nearly five hours (four hours and fifty-six minutes to be exact), because that’s how long he’s been not-very-discreetly observing Dom, who, after receiving Billy’s call on his mobile, ventured out onto the balcony and sort of dropped onto a lounge, and has not moved since.

So there Dom sits, as the sky brightens in front of him, with his mobile in one hand and this razor in the other, idly twirling the short, rectangular metal between his fingers. Elijah doesn’t know where he got the blade, though wonders if it is from his art supplies, and rather than actually watching Dom for the past almost-five hours, it’s been the blade he’s kept his eyes on.

Because Elijah doesn’t really know what is going through Dom’s head right now, and quite frankly that razor is making him nervous as fuck, and even though Dom isn’t generally one to surrender completely, Elijah can’t help but wonder if he’s just fucking had enough.